She swallowed, and nodded. That was one thing off her mind, at least. Well. In his own way, Carlson was being a true gentleman.
That didn’t explain what he wanted from her now, however.
“All right,” she said, pushing her long hair back over a shoulder. “Let’s try this. Why did you take me out of my dress, and then get me new clothes. Where did you even get those clothes?”
“I keep some things on hand. These, however, I sent out my friend to get for you.”
“And you just happened to know my size?”
She had an image flash in her mind, of him measuring her waist with his hands while she lay here in nothing but her lacy panties . . .
He shrugged. “I’ve an eye for such things. Now, allez. Get dressed, and we will go.”
“Go? Uh, where is it you think I’m going?”
He stood up, giving her a bow from his waist and then a wave of his arm through the air. “We go to do what you do best.”
Then he strode to the door and closed it behind him, giving her privacy to put on the on his dresser.
Katie didn’t have a whole lot of choice, unless she wanted to stay nearly naked in his bed all day. She wondered to herself, of the two choices, which would be the least bizarre?
After another moment, she dropped the sheet and reached for the jeans.
Chapter 5
She found that Carlson wasn’t exactly wrong. New Orleans during the day wasn’t a ghost town, by any means, but it had a very different feel than New Orleans at night. In the daylight, New Orleans was all business. Shops selling wares, people standing on corners in color costumes handing out flyers for events or grand openings. That sort of thing. Except for the accents and the colorful storefronts and the streetcars, it could’ve been any city in the country, anywhere.
At Bourbon Street, Carlson stepped them into a small café that he said served the best shrimp gumbo he’d ever eaten, and an amazing Bananas Foster as well. Katie had eaten gumbo before, of course, but what she’d eaten was nothing like this. This bowl of thick red sauce and pieces of shrimp, sausage and bell pepper seemed more authentic than any other dish by the same name she had ever eaten.
Maybe it was because she was sitting in an authentic New Orleans restaurant. Maybe it was the man sitting across from her, watching her savor every bite with a little smile on his lips.
Some of the bites took a little longer, on purpose, and Katie enjoyed the way his eyes lingered on her.
She hadn’t ever had bananas foster before, however. She hadn’t been prepared for the way the sweet sauce warmed on her tongue, or the mix of cold and heat as it went down her throat.
“Mmm,” she murmured, sliding the spoon between her tightly pressed lips to get the last of the taste before setting her empty glass bowl aside. “This is really good.”
“You have not lived, until you have lived in New Orleans.”
“I believe you.” Still, there were some nagging questions that she thought she really deserved an answer to. Resting her elbows on the table, she leaned in so she could lower her voice. “All right, do you want to tell me what’s going on now? I didn’t ask any questions, because you said not to, and this is nice and all, but I really need to know you aren’t trying to kidnap me into the sex trade, or something.”
He laughed quietly, and shook his head. “You would fetch a fine price, I am sure, but no. Nothing like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
There were lots of people in the café, but none of them had paid her and Carlson any mind except the smiling waitress. Still, there was no sense in taking chances. She’d had too many experiences with the weird not to know when something strange was happening.
“I told you, mon chere, we are going to do what you do best.”
“Which is...?”
“Exactly what you said. You know what houses are worth saving. What houses you can, as you said, put money into and make whole again.”
Katie thought that was a very romantic way of putting it. That wasn’t what she had told him she did, exactly. “I can’t work magic,” she said with a shrug.
He made an odd motion with one hand. “You should be careful how you use that word in New Orleans. Here, magic is more than just a word. Here, magic is everywhere. On every street. In every shop. In the eye of every person you meet.”
The way he said it, she could believe him. She could almost feel the magic all around her. “That’s a nice way of looking at things, Carlson, but I--"
“What? You don’t believe in magic?”
Oh, but wasn’t that a loaded question. Ghosts, yes. Evil spirits of dead witches, yes. Things that go bump in the night and occasionally try to drag you to Hell, yes. Magic?
Not so much.
“That’s not the point,” she told him. “What I’m saying, is you’ve been really wonderful and yes, I know how to pick out houses to flip for profit but I wasn’t expecting to do anything like that this trip. This is just a vacation for me. I appreciate the dancing and the change of clothes and this lunch was really nice, but...”
She watched as his face fell. It was then that she realized how important this was to him. Yes, she’d only just met him and even though there was this strange attraction building between them, she wasn’t in the habit of doing favors for men she’d only just met.
Then again, she was here in New Orleans anyway, and it wouldn’t hurt her to give him half an hour of her time to help him out. Especially if there might be more dancing tonight, and drinking, and maybe a chance to be in his bed but actually remember it this time.
Well. That might be expecting a bit too much out of this. She’d made a friend. That was plenty for now.
Especially until she had figured out the situation with Riley. Her boyfriend had made it pretty clear before she left that he wanted space. Well, she was giving him half a continent of space and still she wasn’t sure it was enough for him. The things he’d said made it feel like there was nothing for her to go back to.
On the other hand, there sure was something sitting right here, at this table with her.
“Know what, Carlson?” she said to him. “Let’s do it. Show me this place you’ve got in mind and I promise to give you the benefit of my expertise.”
His smile immediately returned. “Are you sure? You will do this for me?”
“Sure. I’ll bring the knowhow, you bring the magic.”
He reached out for her hand, and she thought he was going to shake hers, until he brought her knuckles up to his lips and kissed them tenderly. The touch sent invisible sparks dancing over the back of her hand.
“Ma chere,” he told her, “this is the start of something beautiful.”
Chapter 6
At some point, the streets stopped having names.
At least, there weren’t any signs to give Katie the names. She tried finding her position on Google Earth using her cellphone, but the little arrow that was supposed to represent her was squarely in the middle of an empty green field, somewhere in the Garden District.
“This place is off the beaten path,” Carlson explained to her. “Won’t find it on a map. Tourists don’t know it’s here. Just us locals.”
“The yat,” she said, hoping she was using the word correctly.
“Ah, mais oui,” he said, obviously enjoying her attempt to use the vernacular, whether she nailed it or not. “It is an up and coming section of our fair city. Soon, it will be bustling with shops and hotels and the like--in a year, maybe two. I wish to expand my empire of clubs. Here, in this place where I’m taking you, I will have the Spiral Club Two. Or perhaps, Club Chere, named after you.”
Blushing again, Katie hid her smile by looking into a shop window they were passing. Inside, handmade yarn dolls were displayed on shelves. Most had “I Love New Orleans” embroidered on their front. The dolls were all different colors. Some had yellow hair. Some had straight black yarn like dreadlocks. Some were bald.
None of them had faces.
&n
bsp; A figure moved behind her in the reflection. A tall man, wearing a tuxedo, and a top hat set on his head at a rakish angle. In the light of day she could see how thin he was. The bones of his face stood out clearly under his dark skin, like an animated skull.
His hand reached out for her.
With a gasp, Katie turned around to face the man.
He was gone, just like before.
”What’s wrong?” Carlson asked her. “You look like you’ve seen a--"
“Don’t say it!” Katie warned him, a little more sharply than she’d meant to.
He studied her for a long moment, and then shrugged in that way he had. “No worries, then. There is plenty of ghosts to be found here in New Orleans, however. Plenty and then some.”
In the heat of the Louisiana sun, Katie felt a cold sweat trickle down her skin, under this shirt that Carlson had given her to wear. She’d had more than enough of ghosts to last her a lifetime already.
Besides, this probably wasn’t a ghost. She’d seen lots of people here in the Big Easy who dressed like undertakers. That’s all this was. Probably. At least, she hoped so. Just a man walking around New Orleans who happened to cross her path twice. Right. That’s all it was.
When a cloud passed over the sun, she shivered.
Then she put the whole mess away from her mind and smiled at Carlson, linking her arm through his. “Come on. Show me where this house is.”
He talked to her while they walked, telling her some of the rich history of New Orleans, and of the different quarters, the streets, the famous people who had lived and died here. It was a history of wars and acquisitions, of personal sacrifice and sometimes triumph. She listened to every word, spoken in his beautiful accent, and tried at the same time to remember the way he’d taken her on these winding, nameless streets.
It was hopeless. Before too much longer, she was completely lost. If Carlson spun her around three times really fast and then ran away, she might never find her way out again.
“Here we are,” he said to her at last. “This is the grand gem I mentioned to you.”
They were standing in front of a two story home wedged in a row of homes, each of them nearly shoulder to shoulder, barely a foot of space between any of them. The street was arrow straight, and each of the houses seemed to be trying to crawl their way to the pavement.
It was a hulking structure, two stories high with a full attic on top of that. There were gabled windows, and a metal chimney pipe sticking up through the roof, and an overhang over the first floor that meant the second story was bigger than the first. Katie knew from her experiences in buying and selling houses that people would often do that, back in the day, because they would be taxed based on square footage on the ground. Make the first floor smaller than the rest, and the taxman doesn’t take as much.
“So?” Carlson asked, impatient for her opinion. “What do you think?”
She gave the outside a critical look. She wanted to make sure of what she was thinking before she said anything. Without going inside, of course, she couldn’t make a real determination but from the outside, it didn’t look half bad. The roof shingles needed replacing in several places but it didn’t look like the weather had gotten through to the decking underneath. It stood straight and proud even though other places on the street were beginning to slouch toward their neighbors.
It gave a gloomy impression, but that was because the sides were a uniform gray, whatever color had been there before now faded by years in the sun. The windows needed cleaning. The trim needed attention, and some of it was going to need to be replaced.
Still, she could see how it used to be beautiful. Stately lines and bold features. There were carvings in the heavy wood of the door. She squinted and saw they were lions and snakes and bats. Very creative. Someone would pay a great deal for a house with that kind of detail crafted into the woodwork, especially if it was all through the interior of the house, too.
“Not bad,” she said, carefully. “I’d need to see the inside to be sure but from a first glance, yes. This is the kind of place I would invest in. I’d want to buy the homes to either side, though, and tear them down to give this home more space.”
“No,” he said firmly. “We can’t do that.”
“Why not?” she asked. “If it’s a question of money, I’m confident you could buy the whole block right now for a low six figures.”
He chuckled softly. “No, it’s not a matter of the money. I have more than enough to make this dream of mine a reality. That is not it at all.”
“Then what?”
Carlson looked up and down the street, his eyes cloudy. “Some things do not belong to me, or you, or to anyone. They belong to New Orleans.”
Well. That was a bizarre thing to say. Katie let it go without comment from her. Different cultures looked at things differently, even property. For her, this was a street full of potential profit and rebirth. To someone who lived here, it was probably historic. Probably couldn’t change too much without insulting the locals. The ‘yat.’
“Okay, well,” she said, taking a breath and trying to get up to speed on what it was he was asking her to do. “Let’s go inside. You can show me the rest of it. I’m guessing you can do that, right? Show me inside?”
“Yes. I can. We just need to meet someone. He’s the current owner of the place. Oh look, he’s already here.”
He was pointing towards the front door, and Katie turned to look that way, wondering what he meant.
The doorway to the home opened slowly, on hinges that squeaked and groaned. Stepping out, onto the framed wooden steps, was a tall man, in a tuxedo, wearing a top hat at a rakish angle.
Chapter 7
Mister Top Hat was real, after all.
Katie took a minute to let that sink in. He wasn’t in her imagination, and he wasn’t a ghost. He was just a tall, thin, skeletal man in a black tux with long tails and a white button up shirt and that hat. His smile stretched to show teeth. His bow was elegant.
He doffed the hat to show perfect, snow white hair that tightly framed his skull.
Then he stood up again, and put the hat back in place.
“On time as always, my dear Carlson.” His voice was deep and dry, like his throat was full of sand. “And who is this beautiful creature you have brought me?”
“I brought an expert,” Carlson explained. “Just met her last night. This is Katie Pearson. She’s visiting our fair city, and she has a special knack for knowing about houses and such. She likes the house.”
“Well, what I’ve seen so far,” Katie was quick to add. “I would need to see what’s on the inside before I had any real input to give.”
With a flick of his shoulder and a roll of his arm, Mister Top Hat bent at his waist again, and extended a hand toward the open door. “Then do come in. I invite you to enjoy my home.”
“Your home?” Katie looked over at Carlson, confused. “Oh, are you buying this place from...” It occurred to her that she didn’t know this man’s name.
“Xavier Holsten,” Mister Top Hat said. “That is my name. This house has been in my family for several generations, and has a long history in its own right. Once upon a time, was the site of a voodoo temple.”
Katie’s head snapped around to stare at Carlson. He’d left that detail out.
His shrug was unconcerned. “This is New Orleans, ma chere. Can’t spin a cat without hitting someplace that was sacred to voodoo.”
Xavier laughed. “Yeah, that is the way of it, sure enough. I know the past, but it’s been a good home to my family. To think there will be new blood here pleases me greatly. It certainly does.”
Katie followed Xavier and Carlson inside. The two men chatted about different things as they walked down the long entrance hall. Katie could only understand some of it. They kept switching between Creole and English. Her high school French wasn’t getting her very far.
So, she left off trying to eavesdrop and instead put her focus on the house itself. There we
re several rooms on the first floor, all of them with furniture draped by heavy white cloths. The floorboards sagged and creaked. The wallpaper was peeling at the seams. There were paintings here and there of New Orleans, but done in a style that gave a darkly cartoonish view of the city. Like the buildings were all watching her, crowding the edges of the frames to get a better look at her.
One of those paintings showed several buildings on fire, dark smoke roiling and people scattering in all directions as the flames danced. Katie looked away from that one quickly. What she saw disturbed her. If the house was going to be refurbished, that would have to be one of the first things to go.
Toward the back of the house, stairs led up to the second floor. Katie stopped at the bottom of them, and looked up. There was a railing around the second floor landing, and then the stairs continued up to a closed door. The attic, she figured.
“What do you think?” Carlson asked. The men had both been quiet up until now.
“You would have to do some heavy renovations to make this into a nightclub,” she pointed out. You’ll have to strip the downstairs and take out several walls to expand the space. The floors will need to be completely redone. I’d like to get a look at the support structure underneath. Where’s the access to the basement?”
“Here,” Xavier said, reaching out to the door concealed to the side of the staircase, underneath the risers. “I did tell him that this would make a better home than a club, but my friend has narrow vision, as they say.”
He smiled at Katie, his skin wrinkling and his teeth gleaming. She waited for him to open the door to the basement. He just stood there, smiling.
“So, that’s the basement? Are you going to let me see it?”
Xavier rattled the handle. “I’m afraid it’s locked. I’m not a very trusting man. I believe that everyone has a dark side. Don’t you agree?”
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 85
